


We know there's always tomorrow

by viveriveniversumvivusvici55



Series: Lean on me [2]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Chemistry is the devil, F/M, High School, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Ships Passing In the Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21688927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viveriveniversumvivusvici55/pseuds/viveriveniversumvivusvici55
Summary: They met once before. Before Jas, before Joja, before tragedy.(You don't have to have read the previous fic to read this one.)
Relationships: Shane & Female Player (Stardew Valley), Shane/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Shane/Player (Stardew Valley)
Series: Lean on me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1513310
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	We know there's always tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to have read my previous fic to read this one. It's just cute, and the idea popped into my head at work.
> 
> The chemistry teacher is named after my high school chem teacher. I was not a good chem student. I tried.

Shane attended exactly one year of high school in Zuzu City, and he hated every minute of it. He’d gotten onto the gridball team, sure – that certainly helped with his popularity at school, especially since he was the best winger that they had – but he was only there while his dad had that temporary contract with Joja Inc. He didn’t like Joja. Every day, his dad came home looking like he’d just been with a vampire – the soul sucked out of him. It was the whole city that did it, the city and Joja and everything.

Shane never wanted to work for Joja if it did that to people.

Either way, he was here in Zuzu City, without his friends and family, trying to make friends and struggling. He found himself reading more and more, and spending less and less time with the team. Especially since they tended to throw their popularity around like it made them celebrities. He didn’t want that. At this point, all he wanted to do was pass chemistry.

“Mr. Andrews, if I see that novel hidden under your desk one more time, I am going to confiscate it.”

The whole class snickered at him, and his cheeks went crimson as he tried to duck out from the teacher’s ferocious glare. He marked his page in _Pride and Prejudice_ and tucked it back into his backpack.

“There we go. Now, can you balance this reaction for us?”

He stared up at the problem on the board and winced. “No, Mr. McKay.”

“Then you should be paying attention. Come talk to me after class, Shane.”

“Yes, Mr. McKay.”

The blush didn’t go down as he took notes from the board, trying to make some form of sense of the equations that were up there. He hated chemistry. He hated it so much, and the teacher certainly didn’t help. The man seemed intent on making a fool of anyone that wasn’t paying attention or was trying to get anything else done. He was sure the man had sympathy somewhere in his soul, but Shane had yet to see it. It certainly didn’t come out in stoichiometry.

When he thought the coast was clear, he started to pull out the novel and balanced it on his lap, back to the open page. He wanted to know what Lizzie would say to Mr. Darcy.

“Again, Mr. Andrews," Shane snapped his head up just before Mr. McKay turned around to look at him. "Can you balance this reaction for us, and then tell us what mass of chlorine the decomposition of 64g of AuCl3?

_SHIT I WASN'T LISTENING._

A piece of paper pressed against his hand, the sharp edge poking it. Shane quickly looked down to see a note, torn from the edge of a notepad, with a neatly written version of the equation next to it, and a mess of calculations in careful steps with a circled number at the bottom.

Well, it's worth a shot.

He swallowed, pulled the paper closer, and tried to read it out with his eyes on the chalkboard. “Um…so the balanced equation is 2AuCl3→2Au+3Cl2, so the products are Gold and Chlorine. 64g of AuCl3 is 0.211mols, and the molar ration of 3 mol Cl2 over 2 mol AuCl3 is 0.317mols of Cl2, and 0.317 mol of Chlorine is…” he tapped out the numbers quickly on his calculator, pretty sure that he was right, “…22.4gs of Chlorine?”

The teacher blinked in surprise and nodded. “Yes. Well done, Shane. You’re getting the hang of it.”

The praise hit him like a knife to the chest and Shane couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. He managed to bite back the ‘thank you’ that wanted to jump to his lips. Besides, it wasn’t Shane who should be thanked.

He looked over slightly to see who had passed the paper over. It was one of the girls who spent all her time in the library. Dark brown hair in two braids down her front, big brown eyes that were anxiously watching the board, and doodles over the top of her notebook, apart from the torn chunk of paper that the equation had been written on.

…Clary, he thought her name was. Or at least, she asked everyone to call her Clary, like that Shadowhunter book.

“Thanks,” he hissed as quietly as he could.

She blinked in surprise and looked at him. Her cheeks went pink and she hissed back softly, “You’re welcome.”

_Shit, she’s cute._

And more importantly, _holy shit I think I understand stoichiometry now, lemme try this again!_

He spent the next fifteen minutes tearing through his chemistry problems, using her note as structure, and when the process wasn’t quite right, he was able to reorder it and still figure it out. He managed to turn his worksheet in, complete, for the first time all semester and got the mark back that same class with an approving look from the teacher.

9/10.

He’d never gotten a 9/10 in chemistry before.

_Holy shit, I can **do this!**_

The bell rang before he can go up to thank her again, and he ended up transferring to a different school that week when his dad’s contract ended unexpectedly, but that confidence still carried him through the rest of the school year. He could manage anything, if only he had the right person to guide him.

* * *

**Fifteen years later:**

Shane and Clarice are sitting on the couch at opposite ends reading - Shane is rereading _Pride and Prejudice,_ while Clarice is slowly working her way through _The House of the Spirits_ – when a memory clicks into place somehow. He looks up, frowns at her, and finally asks, “Did you go to Zuzu Secondary?”

She looks up and nods.

“Did you happen to have chemistry with Mr. McKay in grade 11?” The dim bulb is slowly brightening.

Her smile widens. “I was wondering when you’d remember.”

He just about slams the book down and point at hers. “You’re the cute chem girl who is why I understood stoichiometry!”

Her laugh warms his soul. “And you were the cute gridball player who was nice to me. The only one who was nice to me.”

“Why didn’t you say anything when we met here?” He asks. “Did you not recognize me?”

_Did I change that much?_

“I didn’t recognize you at first, no,” she replies gently. “Took a couple of months. And when I did, I wanted to get to know you as you were now. I rather like who you are now."

If he wasn't in love with her before, he would be now.

She adds, "Though you are just as kind and good looking as you were then.”

He goes crimson and hides in his book. She puts her legs up on his thighs and keeps reading, although when he peeks over the pages, he can see her smiling fondly to herself. She knows he thinks the same about her, and he doesn't even need to say it aloud. 

He was right back then. He could manage anything, if he had the right person to guide him. She's certainly been that for him now.

_We come back to the things we love in the end, don’t we? Even if we pass them by the first time._


End file.
